CFAR offers pharmaceutical organizations several data-based tools that help pharmaceutical leaders optimize the collaborations they have formed to improve the drug discovery process. This piece gives a brief overview of several of these tools. view »

This briefing note summarizes the results of conversations that occurred between Medical directors from across the country at the Empower Summit and continuing on-line dialogues on this important topic. view »

The coronavirus pandemic brings with it an arc of uncertainty that stretches far into the horizon. There are four foci that can help leaders provide steady steering in a difficult time: objectives, capabilities intactness, and normalcy. These foci highlight three challenges leaders face in this crisis; how to steer the enterprise, how to keep it cohesive, and how to provide it with goals.

In our work with organizations across sectors and industries, we have often seen the need to highlight the critical distinction between strategic planning and strategy making. The former aims to be comprehensive but often—in the pursuit of an integrated plan that neatly ties to the stated vision and mission and creates consensus—suppresses rich differences of opinion and potential... view »

In November of 2016, CFAR and the University of Pennsylvania’s Organizational Dynamics Program hosted the inaugural event in the CFAR Lecture Series. With a nearly sold-out house and featuring CFAR Founder and Principal Tom Gilmore discussing his discussing his prolific career as a management consultant, the evening was a great success. As a follow-up to this exciting night, we are pleased to share with you Tom’s annotated bibliography.

Credibility that one will follow talk with action requires us to get into the heads and hearts of others to explore how others will make sense of one’s behavior. The take up of the proposed changes or implementation of the directives is crucial to its success at the ‘moment of truth’ in value-creating exchanges with customers.

This article explores the paradoxical case where the leader has precisely the vision, aggression and talent that the external environment demands, but, ironically, that strength and aggression weakens his or her team and atrophies others’ ability to effectively advance the organization’s purpose and goals.
Appears in People & Strategy Journal, January 2013 view »

When considering cause and effect, we frequently engage in "one-step thinking." Backcasting is a technique that can help us see both the forest and the trees. Published in the Rotman Magazine, Winter 2011 view »

This article describes how leaders can travel into the past to identify and pull forward essential aspects to the organization's continued identity. Published in the Journal of Management Development, 16 (4) Summer 1997, pp. 302 -- 311. view »

In this article, the authors shift the focus away from heroic deeds to small, subtle leadership actions that can have big impact. Chapter published in The 2010 Pfeiffer Annual: Leadership Development. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2010, pp. 220-232. view »

This article overviews the ways in which all of the stakeholders in executive development courses can get significantly greater value from their investments. It starts before the program begins, discusses ways of learning while at the program, and attends to the transition from the program back to work. view »

In our work we have found that for a strategy to take root, there must be an active effort to create fertile ground— people must understand the strategy and know how their work actually contributes to it. We have designed our approach to strategy execution around six critical activities detailed here. view »

This paper outline the role negotiation process the purpose of which is to provide a structural method for people to share with their colleagues the ways in which their work behavior helps or hinders their productivity. view »

While many consulting firms offer strategy support, clients have chosen CFAR for more than three decades because we help clients craft a strategic narrative that motivates action and creates sustainable change. This piece looks at CFAR's approach to strategic planning. view »

Leaders are increasingly experiencing themselves as middles and the behavioral implications are different for those in that position. This paper looks at middles in three dimensions: organizationally, historically in time, and in the value chain. view »

The campaign approach to change mobilizes people around a strategic theme and builds on energy already in the system. A central challenge to sweeping people into a campaign is getting their attention amid a barrage of competing concerns. This briefing note looks at ways to bring people on board and reviews some of the tools that CFAR uses to do this. view »

In this briefing note, we describe small leadership behaviors. They can begin locally in one's role and groups and when sustained they can create 'small wins' that can make a significant difference to the climate of a work group. view »

PowerPoint has become a pervasive form of organizational communication in both internal and external presentations. This briefing note looks at several alternative strategies that CFAR has developed for working with PowerPoint decks that result in more collaborative setting of the agenda for the time spent together. view »

As organizations face increasingly complex and fast-changing environments, they typically specialize and differentiate units in order to focus on a particular function. The challenge in organizations is to link the knowledge and worldview in different units in the service of a product or service, creating a productive pair. This note looks at the different characteristics of productive pairs and how they can be fostered. view »

There are a variety of ways to create communication and dialog among consultants, with much to be gained by clients. In the course of our work we have come to develop a variety of strategies for better leveraging and coordinating consulting resources. This briefing note looks at three approaches aimed at helping consultants and clients think about the best ways to capitalize on the investments being made. view »

A "found pilot" is a project, practice or event in which the future is already beginning to show up and are essential to campaigns for change. In this briefing note, we explore the idea of found pilots at different stages of a campaign. view »

Upon your appointment, everyone needs to see you yesterday and often they and observers will over interpret the meaning of the order in which you attend to various constituencies. This note offers some advice for the early stages of one’s leadership especially on ways to leverage one’s scarce time. view »

Executive retreats must be carefully designed and linked to the particular organization and people. Through our experience, we have designed and monitored many such processes. CFAR has come to see certain principles that may aid others in developing a retreat for their organization that will deliver on the hopes and the objectives of participants. view »

To build a learning organization, executives and managers must institutionalize a specific set of practices. Included in this briefing note is a list of some of the systems/practices and we briefly touch on certain important elements of each. view »

This describes the process used to try out an influence encounter with an important stakeholder. This process is valuable as preparation for being more effective in influencing a key stakeholder. It also can surface concretely strategic choices. view »

Top teams sit on the boundary between a fast-changing wider world and a complex internal organization. We know that any two-person relationship under stress will often "triangle" in a third party. This briefing note looks at some approaches to dealing with triangles. view »

Campaigns work particularly well in universities, health systems, professional service organizations and other "loosely-coupled" systems. In this briefing note we explore a "campaign" approach to organizational change and look at the four key elements of a "campaign". view »

We know that under conditions of uncertainty many leaders are stimulated to pull more issues in closer to them rather than push them out, and to get others to "worry" them towards some resolution. A key skill of the "new leadership" is greater comfort with not being in control. This briefing note looks at some of the downsides to keeping control of delegated issues. view »

The following note offers an overview of the challenges of sequencing these intertwined issues, and the imperative that they be thought of in a woven, recursive way across time rather than a simplistic, linear sequence. view »

A challenge faced in envisioning a goal is the difficulty imagining the conditions that have to be true in the future if the goal is to be met. How can we fully envision the texture of such a future state? What are the conditions that need to be in place in order to accomplish the goal? The backcast helps guide in building a detailed action plan that illuminates obstacles and details accomplishments and the steps needed to achieve them. Published in OD Practitioner, Vol. 29, No. 4, Fall 2007. view »